Saturday Night Live held nothing back in this week’s (8 October) cold open.
In the gameshow-set sketch, SNL cast member Bowen Yang skewered Elon Musk, Kanye West, Joe Biden, and even Chris Pratt in the space of a few minutes.
The pretend host of a gameshow called So You Think You Won’t Snap, Yang attempted to get “contestants” to “snap” simply by reading out facts gleaned from recent news stories.
First up was Biden, who was mostly roasted for being 79-years-old. “Did you know that when Joe Biden was born we didn’t have highways?” Bowen asked.
For Chris Pratt, it was the trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie that left him vulnerable. Pratt stars as Mario the Italian plumber in the upcoming film, though it’s hard to tell from the recently released clip. “He’s supposed to be Italian! That’s like his whole thing!” Chloe Fineman screamed before “snapping”, which took the form of hitting a flight attendant.
Kenan Thompson snapped at the mention of Elon Musk’s name alone – no punchline required.
And the jokes about Kanye West mostly took the form of things the rapper had done over the last few weeks, like “call Lizzo fans demonic” and “opened a private school”. Yang also mentioned West’s claim “he’s never read a book in his life” and the White Lives Matter shirt West wore at a Paris fashion show.
The show was hosted by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, who was joined by Willow Smith as musical guest. Her new album Coping Mechanism was released Friday (7 October).
In the opening monologue, Gleeson was “surprised” on stage by his In Bruges co-star Colin Farrell. Elsewhere, he played a CNN news reporter whose White House dispatch is continually interrupted by the recent Try Guys cheating scandal.
